{"id":6583,"date":"2021-04-09T09:52:11","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T13:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6583"},"modified":"2025-08-23T19:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:05:10","slug":"spotlight-church-allowed-abuse-by-priests-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2021\/04\/09\/spotlight-church-allowed-abuse-by-priests-for-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight: \u2018Church Allowed Abuse by Priests for Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On Jan. 6, 2002, the Boston Globe\u2019s headlines put the Boston archdiocese in their spotlight: \u201cChurch Allowed Abuse by Priests for Years: Aware of Geoghan record, archdiocese still shuttled him from parish to parish.\u201d This story was a shock to most, an indictment on others, and a voice for the victims.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Widespread and systemic child sex abuse was the biggest story since\u00a0 9\/11 for Boston Catholic families. Shock waves hit around the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cSpotlight\u201d shows how the Boston Globe\u2019s investigative team, Spotlight, challenged their culture, faith and friends in search of the truth. Their investigation revealed the many layers of hushed silence. It exposed how the church manipulated a faithful Boston Catholic culture to cover up its sins.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The script and actors are incredible in their portrayal of what being from Boston and being Catholic meant in 2001. It also shows what it meant to be an outsider.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), the new executive editor, was the outsider with fresh eyes. Marty was not Boston-born and raised, and he was not Catholic. He was an outsider in a city where that was considered a deficiency. Marty came to the paper with a reputation for budget cuts. With two strikes against him, he requested a meeting with the editor of Spotlight, Walter \u201cRobby\u201d Robinson (Michael Keaton), and the managing assistant editor, Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Marty familiarized himself with the city and the newspaper before the meeting. But when he suggested that Robby change the focus of Spotlight\u2019s investigation, the men were not immediately sold on Marty\u2019s idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The outsider editor, with a 53 percent Catholic subscriber base, requested that the team investigate Cardinal Bernard Law\u2019s (Lou Cariou) handling of molestation allegations. The men hedged, but Marty pressed. \u201cThis strikes me as an essential story for a newspaper.\u201d Motivated a little by the outsider\u2019s authority and a little by conviction, Spotlight began an investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Robby, Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Matt Carrol (Brian d\u2019Arcy) and Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Spotlight\u2019s team, shared the same Boston Catholic background but dug in deep to follow wherever the truth leads.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The movie portrayed Boston Catholic identity as a culture of its own. Those within it understood the expected loyalties. Ben was slow to give his blessing to the story. But what the team uncovered defied any loyalties except to the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The truth was that the Catholic Church used emotional, financial and political power to maintain silence.\u00a0 Lawyers got their cut of the hush money and looked the other way. The poor or unlucky were the victims.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The investigative team was the church\u2019s victim, too. Following tips and leads came with a cost.\u00a0 They heard the victims\u2019 stories and felt their desperation. They put on their reporter hats and pressed for details, for the unspeakable words. Their beloved Boston, their church and their friends had dirty big secrets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Robby\u2019s friendships stretched to the breaking point. Those within his circle allowed the abuse to continue in one way or another. Robby confronted those complicit in this scandal. The time came when he also had to confront his past careless mishandling of a related story. The scene was painful for him and the audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The investigation took a toll on Sacha\u2019s relationship with her grandmother. It was not because her grandmother knew anything about the investigation. She didn\u2019t, and that was part of Sacha\u2019s pain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While attending mass with her grandmother, Sacha was uncomfortable with the priest\u2019s rhetoric and manipulation. That ended her sacred time with her grandmother. Her frustration and anger with the pain she knew her grandmother would experience when the story was released were palpable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The investigation hit close to home in a different way for Matt when a priests\u2019 treatment home\u2019s address was familiar.\u00a0 Fear marked his frantic run to find the house. Desperate to warn his family and friends, the best he could do was tape a picture of the house with a warning to stay away on his refrigerator.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mike was an intense reporter, easily obsessed with his job.\u00a0 With this investigation, intensity increased.\u00a0 It consumed him, leaving no time for personal care and he let his relationship with his wife slip away. It was a less intense, inward-focused and anguished Mike who lamented to Sacha another loss — he had tucked away in his back pocket the belief that he\u2019d go back to church someday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Spotlight\u2019s investigation challenged loyal Boston Catholics. It challenged faith, power and loyalties. The investigation drew a line in the sand for those who let it happen.\u00a0 The headlines pointed a straight line to those who knew.\u00a0 In December 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in disgrace.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cSpotlight,\u201d directed by Tom McCarthy, won over 124 awards, including the 2016 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. The Spotlight team would go on to do nearly 600 articles, earning the journalists the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On Jan. 6, 2002, the Boston Globe\u2019s headlines put the Boston archdiocese in their spotlight: \u201cChurch Allowed Abuse by Priests for Years: Aware of Geoghan record, archdiocese still shuttled him from parish to parish.\u201d This story was a shock to most, an indictment on others, and a voice for the victims.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Widespread and systemic child […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8287,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6583\/revisions\/8287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}